Devils Lake inter-ocean. (Devils Lake, Ramsey Co., Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1905, 1887-07-09

feDelIlOn.
Nobody was saying anything about
these battle flags. Now and then q
company of Union veterans, making a
reunion pilgrimage to some old battle
field, carried with them in q glow Of
good fellowship and f%raternal feeling a
flag, captured by them long ago from
their friends the enemy, and o being
Hospitality entertained by them,
crowned the reunion of old time friends
and foes by returning the flag to the
hands that had first unfurled and then
so bravely defended it. If the veterans
wish todo this no man shall say to them
nay. In fact it was rather a pleasant
thing for the boys to do when their
hearts prompted them to do it. They
captured the flags 1t is right that they
do with them as they will.
But here comes q man who never
captured a flag, who never saw a rebel
flag until long after it had been cap
tured; who abode nigh unto the Cana
dian border when he had every oppor-
tunity to go cunning after battle flags F;
he hears the contented monologue of a
hen who is foraging through the straw
berry bed and occasionally dividing the
spoils with the weak, though much
oftener with the strong, and mistakes it
for the restless ~"clucK' of Il hen moved
by promptings of the maternal instinct
to brood over whole nest full of the
unsearchable possibilities of eggs whose
fruitful harvest may, good wot, domi-
nate the electoral barnyard. He said
II will 80 into this obliteration and re.
Cancellation business as a jobber; / will
take up that I laid not down; I will
gather where I have not strewn and reap
where I did not SOW !; 1 will weather
these flag returners and cross the line
ahead of the whole feet by a clean ma.
jority."
Alas for the man who would set nom
"setting" hen, or, finding q willing one
setteth her upon dragons teeth
That hen wasn't ready to set, and the
mistaken president has crumpled his
linen, ovcrheated himself, impaired his
dignity, filled the air with dust and
feathers and set the whole national
barnyard into wild commotion and the
hen which he sought to "set" is perched
high on the reel of the Grant reaper,
which has been under the shed since
1865, where she makes the farm ring
with defiant protests. Even if that hen
was half ready to set, President CIeve-
land isn't the man TO set her. He
hasn't been with her enough. Some
how, she seems to roost high every time
he comes around the barnyard. If she
had seer more of him, say when he was
twenty-five years younger, it might haye
been different.
Any man old enough to be president
ought to be able to see when n hen
wants 10 set. A hen is such u fool she
reminds me of men. And even u pres
ident IS but Il man. See, now | have
a quarrel with my brother, with whom
l have lived pleasantly enough every
since our father died away back in 1776.
we fight Il long time, but at lust I click"
him, take away his marbles and make
him come back into the house ! give
him the best place ut the table, and by
and by, acquiesce when he says it is his
turn to u the house. In a moment
of good feeling and fraternal love I be-
gin to give back the marbles I took
from him. He doesn't ask for them,
but l give them to him. want to do
this ; it pleases him and makes me feel
better. While l am doing this along
GENES my stepfather, who hid himself
under the bed all the time we were
fighting and only sent the hired man to
represent him-he comes along now and
says:
"Here Jefferson, I'm going to give you
back all the marbles TINT Abraham took
away from YOU"
Will l give my brother another soil
tary marble? Not by Il long chalk ; I'll
slick" my stepfather first. By his ILL
timed, meddlcsome interference III a
matter that didn't C him, re has
retarded what he sought to promote.
And finally, brethren, when the hen
is ready to set she "sets." All the pres.
idents from Washington to Mexico can't
stop her. If you destroy her nest and
lock her out of the henery, she will set
with perfect faith and ~tireless patience
under the hobs of an old woodshed on a
bottle neck and Il bureau knob. She
may ever be reduced to the necessity Of
setting standing up, but set she will.
When it comes time to return the bat.
tie flags the men who captured them
will restore them, and no man who
stayed in Buffalo all through the battle